License to Pawn: Best Deals & Steals - My Gold & Silver Pawn Shop Life Story | Perfect for Pawn Shop Enthusiasts & Reality TV Fans

Great book. Read it cover to cover on the plane on my way to Vegas. The book has wonderful insights on Rick's beginnings and his struggle to overcome his seizures. The book goes on to discuss their life in San Diego, right down the street from Jack Murphy stadium (Qualcom stadium now) in Mission Valley. The old man comes into the living room one day says "time to move on boys, we just can't make a go of it here anymore." Back then the mother and the old man were into real estate. The family moves to Vegas were Rick talks about how he fought the city about getting a pawn license. Apparently in Clark County the rules are that you have to get a pawn license based on the city's population. So Rick checks in weekly to find out what Las Vegas city's population is. At the time he started calling in, the city's population was 220,000 people(that was back in the late 70's). He called in till the cities population grew to 250,000 people. Apparently Clark County only issues pawn shop licenses for every 50,000 people. So when the cities population grew to 250,000, Rick went to the city's courthouse to get a license and they said they were not issuing licenses. The words that Rick used were "we aren't accepting those", What a crock, so the old man and Rick get a lawyer and fight the city to get a license and succeed. The original location of the pawn shop was downtown on Freemont Street, but then they moved and got zoned to move the Pawn shop to Las Vegas Blvd in 1988. You'll love the story about the local councilman who was against the Harrison's opening the pawnshop and then changed his tune to fully support them. (Guess Brad Pitt has it right in Ocean's 11; in this town your luck can change just that quickly). Pretty interesting story about Corey and Chumlee and how they were on drugs from age 17 to 22 on meth. They used to just sit in a trailer and just do drugs all day. I guess one day Rick and Old Man had them sent to a job program in Reno which did them a lot of good. Corey comes back from the job program to start doing drugs again, but midstream stops doing drugs and swears off of it for life. He starting telling himself every time he wanted to get "high" he would eat a double bacon cheeseburger at Carl's Jr. Back then Corey was about 150lbs. Chumlee also stoped doing drugs and both of them starting to work for Rick. One of Rick's moneymaking ideas was buying a Quizno's by the federal building downtown Las Vegas. Chumlee and Corey worked there for a while. The thought was that having this business would do well since many other restaurants were father away and federal workers would want to order sandwiches from this Quizno's. But Rick failed to check into the food court that was built inside the federal building and because of this the business failed. Oh well, good try. The way the old man is on the show is how his story is told in the book. He is pretty "crusty" and is comes through in his section of the book. However, he is a good man, takes care of family and served the Navy proudly for 20 years. So the guy you see on TV, is the same guy in the book. One story that the old man is very familiar with is their recognizable customers. There is a story about a guy who came into the shop every day and used to do chores for "buck". The story is great about how he carts a load of alcohol up and down Las Vegas Blvd for "buck". The story ends with him getting into a rather unusual act with "peaches"(Corey's cousin") and Corey has to tell the guy he has to leave. The guy dies 6 months after that. Pretty sad. Rick ends the book with a some his thoughts and people he has run into. Like he says in "Pawn Stars", "one thing I learned after 21 years, you never know that is going to walk into that door".For anyone who loves the show will love this book. Highly recommend.